What’s the price of a second?

23.3.2016, 01:49

Lean manufacturing is all about minimizing waste – be it time or material. The key to improved efficiency is reliable identification of components. Every aspect of our latest generation Corona RFID tag is designed to meet the challenges of a car production line, making identification fast and reliable.

Confidex has been collaborating with Volvo to create the ultimate RFID tag for car manufacturing for about seven years. Over the time, there has been a number of improved versions of our Corona tag, which have been used in manufacturing of some two million Volvos. The latest step in the ten years of Corona evolution is now complete – after long and hard development work.

In the hunt for reliability

A car production line is not a very friendly place. The poor RFID tag must endure welding, immersing in paint and baking in the paint shop oven. That is why we made reliability our first priority. One reliable tag can be used throughout the production line, eliminating the need for other identification methods such as bar codes and cameras. Our previous generation of Corona was on the average 99.97 % reliable – meaning that out of 100 000 tags, only 30 failed during the manufacturing process. We trust that the new Corona can top even that.

Honing the details

One of the most critical points in an RFID tag is attaching the antenna to the RFID chip. That’s why we put a lot of effort in testing 19 different conductive adhesives. We collaborated with the local University of Technology, which conducted a number of tests and produced several studies. Now the connection is honed to the perfection and stays secure in a variety of circumstances.

More flexibility

The previous generation of Corona tag was made of hard, black plastic. The new Corona takes a radically different approach by being thin, flexible and transparent. Still we managed to make it thinner where the RFID chip is mounted. This makes it very resistant to surface pressure, and the flexible structure helps attaching to curved surfaces and makes the tag less fragile.

The result

A failed RFID tag can stop the production line for precious minutes. That’s why the material, construction and adhesives used in our new Corona are all optimized for reliability. It has been tested to survive in paint shop oven (30 minutes in 220 degrees Celsius), spot welding and corrosion bath. While zero failed units (100 % reliability) is a utopian goal, we try to get as close as possible. The new Confidex Corona is like the DNA of a car – the vehicle gets built around it, and the same tag can be used to identify the vehicle throughout its lifecycle.